A federal judge in Oregon sided with salmon against the Trump administration on Wednesday, ordering the federal government to change hydropower system operations long considered at the heart of native fish populations’ sharp decline.
At the center of the dispute are eight dams and reservoirs on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the Pacific north-west that have created devastating obstacles for salmon and steelhead unable to breach their deadly turbines or navigate through the large, warm, artificial pools. The federal agencies and their supporters, which include a group of utilities, water managers and farming organizations, argued that reservoir drawdown would put power reliability in peril.
Legal battles waged for decades over the harms were paused in 2021 as stakeholders – which include the states of Oregon and Washington, four Native American tribes and a coalition of conservation and fishing groups – began working with the Biden administration on a solution.
In the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, a landmark salmon recovery plan brokered in late 2023, the federal government committed more than $1bn over a decade to support depleted salmon runs and new investments into clean energy projects in the area to replace the hydropower generated by the dams. The plan, however, would be short-lived.
Months after returning to office, Trump withdrew from the agreement, calling it “radical environmentalism”, and the parties quickly returned to court.
But in a strongly worded ruling, issued late on Wednesday, the Oregon US district court judge Michael Simon rebuked the administration’s position and the “disappointing history of government avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts at solving the problem”, and the evidence presented, which he said was created for the lawsuit and contradicted the scientific record.
In a report issued under Biden in 2024 and removed from public access by the Trump administration, the Department of the Interior acknowledged that the dams inflicted harm on the river and the Native American tribes that depend on it. Construction of the dams at the turn of the 20th century transformed riparian ecosystems and devastated salmon runs, flooded villages and burial grounds, and pushed tribal members from their lands, traditions, culture and food sources.
The Columbia River basin, which sprawls across a swath of land the size of Texas, once produced more salmon than any other system in the world. But out of the 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead that once thrived here, seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act and four have already been wiped from existence.
“One of the foundational symbols of the West, a critical recreational, cultural, and economic driver for Western states, and the beating heart and guaranteed resource protected by treaties with several Native American tribes is disappearing from the landscape,” Simon wrote of the threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead.
He lamented that the battle for the life of these declining and important species had “not been fought at the end of a hook and line, nor in the woven threads of a fishing net, nor even based on the appetites of sea lions, avian predators, or killer whales. Instead, the greatest battle has been waged in the courts,” he said.
His order generally sustains the status quo, returning reservoir and flow levels to what they were last year with some small increases. The groups that sued for the injunction celebrated the order, and said the ruling was needed to prevent salmon extinction in the basin.
“Salmon need help now, and we’re encouraged the court has granted immediate, commonsense relief that will help protect imperiled north-west salmon and steelhead,” said attorney Amanda Goodin, who works for Earthjustice, an environmental law organization that represented the plaintiffs.
Advocates also said this decision did not spell the end to the issues in the region.
“While these emergency measures are implemented, we’ll keep our eye on our long-term goal of helping the Tribes and the states restore Snake River salmon for the generations to come,” said Mike Leahy, senior director of wildlife, hunting and fishing policy for the National Wildlife Federation, in a statement.
Oliver Milman and Léonie Chao-Fong contributed reporting
